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Friday, April 10, 2015

Five Reasons the Left Should Embrace Ted Cruz

Ted Cruz is a
potential gold mine for progressives. Like Sarah Palin, Cruz is like a
gift that never stops giving. Here are five reasons the left should
cheer on Cruz, not scoff at his mean-spirited regression and outdated
absolutism.

Brace for odious Tea Partiers and mind-numbing fundamentalists to
shout “Praise the Lord” for the slickest hustler of their extremist
faith, Ted Cruz. Imagine Justice Scalia in the White House, marriage
banned for gays but not between church and state, discrimination against
minorities, immigrants, and legal abortion, assaults on voting rights,
and the crown jewel that deposes federalism: crucify the IRS. “Cruz,”
incidentally, means “cross,” thus with kinship to “crucify,” for what
it’s worth.

Actually, Cruz said “abolish” the IRS, but look at the multiple
ironies. His “abolitionist” crusade (ban the IRS, gay marriage,
Obamacare, climate scientists) takes on the very same federalism that
abolished plantation slavery while crushing a like-minded, confederate
rebellion. Imagine Palin with brainpower and Constitutional law
training, pandering with faux logic, not garbled syntax. Donald Trump
without knee-jerk bigotry but good debating moves. Rick Perry with a
memory, pinpointing every Washington tyranny worthy of fire and
brimstone.

But wait, for I find light, not just heat, in Cruz’ fiery
rabble-rousing and scheming shutdowns. Could brother Cruz not offer that
magical bridge over troubled waters, coursing through the Nader
dreamscape when the not-yet-deranged right clasps hands with leftists on
the barricades? Arguably, the more disruption, the merrier if it washes
away the toxic status quo. Unlike establishment puppets clinging to set
scripts, Cruz is the real thing, a radical who scorns all compromise
and suffers neither fools (every Democrat). nor party betrayers (McCain
nailed Cruz as “wacko bird”).

The Cruz ministry responds to all concocted conspiracies with
simplicity itself: accept with absolute faith the literal truth of God’s
crowning works: the Bible and our Constitution. “Reason not the need” —
for if distant scribes or “theocratic” Founders (sure!) had not meant
exactly what they said, God would have fed them different words. Or
syntax. Or punctuation. Beware quibblers, that Jesus’ Aramaic came via
Greek, then Latin and Arabic before alighting with European tongues.
Piety teaches that “when God speaks to the faithful, nothing is lost in
translation.”

So, why should the left cheer on Cruz, not scoff at his mean-spirited regression and outdated absolutism. Let us count the ways.

1) Let’s End Republican Solidarity: An inflexible Cruz
missile disrupts the dominant party’s need for high unity against a
plausibly unifying 2016 Democrat. Even GOP honchos and funders can’t
stand Cruz’ truculent tirades, nor welcome his predictably sneering
endorsements of any centrist nominee. And actually nominating Cruz
dramatizes how far (or how low) the GOP will go, inflaming incipient
party strife that can’t help but improve the world. Why should Cruz’
purist loyalists pollute themselves with amoral, unchristian billionaire
profiteers or amoral, winning-is-everything operatives? Let the Rapture
ranks fight the good fight, for does God not control everything? Why
the almighty even lets such fruitcakes sniff such immense power — that’s
a mystery for another day.

2) Let’s Test the Extremist GOP Election Thesis: Simply, that
modern Republicans lose with mushy “centrists” like Dole, McCain and
Romney but win when “true conservatives” run — Reagan and Dubya (!),
even Bush I (!!). Purity is the ticket to the White House, per this
fiction, especially vs. that evil, “liberal” Clinton “woman” (actual bad
word deleted). Cruz wouldn’t be caught dead compromising his principles
and, like other insurgents, would die for the cause, knowing it will
improve his heavenly status. What political messiah succeeded without
dissing some moribund party line, even being the ego-driven, loose
cannon? Let Cruz have his head and test this thesis, once again: he can
only magnify how politically bankrupt is the ultra-right.

3) Let’s Watch Extremism Implode: Obviously, a major,
anti-federalist party crusade is missing in action since 1964. If Obama
instigated the Tea Party flair-up (however co-opted), why not assume Mr.
Strident Right-winger won’t similarly “gift” the left, along with rare
electoral fireworks? Would not Cruz’ ferocity fit that bill, so
outlandish he’d might even help Senator Warren reform Wall Street
crimes? No GOP mouthpiece would more jeopardize GOP Senate control.
Could Cruz not accomplish instantly what the Democratic Party hasn’t
done in a decade: reframe how we analyze problems, propose solutions,
and organize political pressure? What serves the left better than a
fanatic itching to reinvent Goldwater’s infamous dictum: “extremism in
the defense of liberty is no vice”? Recall the rush of progressive ’60’s
reforms after that zealotry went off the tracks.

4) Let’s Really Talk Science and Knowledge: What this country
needs is mass re-education about core subjects, nothing more than: what
is knowledge, what is science, even reality, and how does reason and
logic make sense of the world? Tough stuff, I know. If we don’t reverse
the calculated ignorance foisted by red state classrooms and churches,
say goodbye to the triumphs of civilization, like measurable data
wherein reason trumps voodoo, faith, denial, superstition, and willful
ignorance. What better teaching moments loom than for top minds to
eviscerate Cruz’ indefensible laugher this week, that “global warming
alarmists” do not “engage in reasoned debate,” sounding instead
apocalyptic alarms “equivalent of the flat-Earthers.” Let those games
begin, for that’s a gold mine for rationality as a parade of the world’s
greatest minds exposes truly benighted “flat-Earthers.”

However clever a debater, Cruz must eventually defend Senator
Inhofe’s folly depicting climate change as “the greatest hoax ever
perpetrated on the American people.” What, next to trickle-down
economics, WMDs or Iraqi oil will pay all war expenses? Either Cruz’
faith-based, anti-intellectualism is exposed as a hustle or the U.S.
truly descends, unable to distinguish propaganda from knowledge. Even
Inhofe’s own Presbyterian Church rejects his denial, urging each
believer “to calculate your carbon emissions, to educate others, and to
use less energy, striving to make your life carbon neutral.” Let our
best science confront not just carbon emissions but the more dangerous
emissions of Cruzian blather.

5) Let’s Trigger Progressive Reform: Though slower than
glacial melting, our majority can awaken from deep sleep, but only when
gored by insufferably bad leadership. Thus, before our worst president
(and VP, too), Dick Cheney left in disgrace, the devastation was
palpable. Only the magnitude of the fiasco was unknown. Did not that
nadir allow the “change-artist” Obama to outflank the entrenched
Hillary, then trash McCain as tarnished goods? Like Hoover before FDR,
Nixon before Carter, or Bush I before Clinton, enough debilitating
debacles prompt the widespread appeal of change.

Of course, the cycle never promises that right and good follow
terrible times, only that unendurable collapse opens the the door for
rehabilitation. Depressions (1890’s and 1930’s) fueled our two greatest
reform eras, both markedly reigning in the worst of capitalism. Just
nominating Cruz would be a tectonic shift, but imagine a President Cruz.
Nostalgia for Dubya would wash out Cruz’s nasty, theocratic
confederacy, and what better lever would again elect progressives?

No guarantees from this skeptic, but either we get another cyclical
pendulum towards the light or more woe looms. So, overall, there’s cause
aplenty to encourage Cruz’ long-shot race: dinosaurs, after all, had to
die off before evolution developed a more humanistic, rational mammal.
Hey, fate offers us a 50-50 chance: either badness produces more badness
or something better emerges, by hook or by crook. Cruz has the best
chance to abolish the status quo, a modest ’16 goal.

Bio:
Educated at Rutgers College (B.A.) and U.C. Berkeley (Ph.D. English), I
left university teaching (Northwestern, Univ. of Chicago) for business,
founding and heading SOTA Industries, high end audio manufacturing
company from '80 to '92. From '92-'02 I did marketing consulting &
writing for small firms. From '02 until now, I scribble on politics,
economics, religion, and culture, looking for the wit in the shadows.

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